Pages

April 16, 2016

We would like to change emphasis this time, turning from Quaker quilts to Quaker history and one Quaker woman, in particular, whose efforts changed the course of women's rights and history in this country. That woman was Alice Paul.

President Barack Obama, on the 12th of this month, signed the necessary paperwork under the Antiquities Act to establish a national monument to the history of women's equality in the United States. This act added to the National Park Service the Belmont-Paul Women's Equality National Monument in Washington, D.C. Formerly known as the Sewall-Belmont House and Museum, the property contains a library, museum, and extensive material associated with the National Woman's Party (NWP). The founder of the NWP was Alice Paul who lived and worked at this house as she promoted women's right to vote, rewrote the Equal Rights Amendment, and fought for its passage in Congress.

The Belmont-Paul Women's Equality National Monument. Source of image:

Wikimedia Commons. Built by Robert Sewall in 1799- 1800, this is the oldest

house still standing in the Capitol Hill neighborhood.

Alice Paul was born in Paulsdale, New Jersey, on January 11, 1885. Her family was descended from William Penn and were participating members of the Religious Society of Friends. Alice attended the Moorestown Friends School and afterwards Swarthmore College, a school co-founded by her grandfather. She graduated from Swarthmore in 1905 with a bachelor's degree in biology. She later attended the University of Pennsylvania, earning both a masters degree and a Ph.D. in sociology.

Alice Paul as a young girl. Source of image: Wikimedia Commons.

Between her bachelor's degree from Swarthmore and attending the University of Pennsylvania, Alice spent a fellowship year working in a settlement house on the Lower East Side of New York. Her experience at the Henry Street Settlement House convinced her that social work was not the way to fight injustice in this country but rather only political action could generate the kind of change that was needed.

Alice continued her studies at the Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre in Birmingham, England, after completing her masters degree at the University of Pennsylvania. She heard Christabel Pankhurst speak while in Birmingham and later moved to London where she joined the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) led by Christabel and her mother, Emmeline Pankhurst. Affiliation with this group showed Alice the militant side of political action to gain suffrage for women in England. She participated in a number of suffrage demonstrations and was three times arrested for her activities. During her last incarceration, she participated in a hunger strike which resulted in being force-fed and badly injured during the process.

Alice returned to the United States in 1910 and immediately became involved with the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) which, at the time, was languishing due to internal divisions and the death, in 1907, of its former leader Susan B. Anthony.

Alice Paul in 1915. Source of image: Wikimedia Commons.

Alice was already well-known in America from English newspaper articles that described her activity with the WSPU and her incarcerations. She instantly injected the American movement with renewed vigor and purpose using her organizational skills and lessons learned from the Pankhursts. Her first major project was to organize the 1913 Woman Suffrage Procession which took place in Washington, D.C. the day before President Woodrow Wilson's inauguration.

Program from the Woman Suffrage Procession. Source of image: Wikimedia Commons.

Alice, Lucy Burns, and a group of their colleagues mobilized no fewer than 5,000 women to march in the parade, sending word across the country for women's rights advocates to join them. The resulting spectacle was like nothing before seen in Washington. Alice marched with a group of Swarthmore friends, all dressed in white. They were joined by many college-aged women who had become attracted to the movement by Alice Paul and her followers.

Thousands of spectators lined the streets to either cheer or jeer as the small army of suffragettes passed by with signs and flags, some on horseback. It was reported that Wilson arrived by train in Washington while the procession was underway and demanded to know why there was no crowed of well-wishers to greet him. He was told: "Everyone is watching the Woman Suffrage Parade, Sir." (Stiehm.) He was not pleased and this annoyance only increased what would be a long-standing dislike that Wilson developed for Alice Paul - a feeling that was mutual.

The Woman's Suffrage Procession did not end peacefully. Although a permit had been granted to hold the event, the police coverage was not adequate to deal with the open hostility that broke out when a mob of men began hurling bricks and stones at the marchers and some of the police actually joined in the attack. One hundred women were hospitalized from injuries suffered during this violent outbreak and the cavalry was actually called out to stop the bedlam and protect the women marchers.

If the issue of woman's suffrage had not been given serious attention up until the procession, it certainly was thereafter. Tension grew within NAWSA over the aggressive tactics being employed to earn the vote and, in 1916, Alice broke from the organization and formed the National Woman's Party (NWP). With the NWP, the focus shifted to achieving an amendment to the Constitution while keeping the issue in the forefront through what were called "Silent Sentinels" of woman holding signs demanding the vote, repeated public demonstrations, and even chaining themselves to the gates of the White House to demand passage of an amendment that would give them the vote. Many of the suffragettes, including Alice, were arrested and imprisoned for these activities, living under brutal prison conditions that included force-feeding with hoses when they refused to eat.

Finally, in June of 1919, the United States Senate passed the suffrage amendment and the battle began to have it ratified by all state legislatures. The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was finally ratified in August 1920 by one vote in Tennessee. This vote was cast by Assembly Member Henry Burn - but only after his mother, Febb Burn, sent him a telegram demanding that he change his vote to "yes".

Later in life, Alice fought to provide protection to women in the Civil Rights Act. She was the original author of an Equal Rights Amendment that was passed by the Senate and the House in 1972 but was not approved by the minimum of thirty-eight states needed to ensure its ratification.

Alice lived to be ninety-two years old, passing away at the Quaker Greenleaf Extension Home in Moorestown, New Jersey, on July 9, 1977. She actively promoted women's rights until the end, exemplifying the Quaker expression: "Let your life speak." In 2012, a $10.00 gold piece was issued in her honor and the newly dedicated Belmont-Paul Women's Equality National Monument now also commemorates the contributions of her life and work.

Selected Sources:

Bacon, Margaret Hope. Mothers of Feminism, The Story of Quaker Women in America. Philadelphia: Friends general Conference, 1986.

April 1, 2016

Our last two posts concerned Eliza Naudain Corbit, her husband Daniel, and his second wife Mary Wilson Corbit. These posts were inspired by a quilt of blocks that Eliza made and distributed to her friends and family for annotation. This quilt is a holding of the Winterthur Museum, Gardens and Library in Winterthur, Delaware.

The Historic Odessa Foundation in Odessa, Delaware, also has one of Eliza's creations. This is a quilt top, backed in floral fabric, un-quilted, containing the green printed fabric seen in the Winterthur quilt as well as a variety of other fabrics. The top is comprised of 8 1/2 X 8 1/2 inch blocks, nine across and nine down for a total of eighty-one blocks. The blocks are separated by pieces of three-inch-wide brown printed sashing and display the names of various family members and friends as well as a lengthy verse about the coming of death on a centrally placed block. The date of the quilt is 1844, the year of Eliza's death.

Jessica F. Nicoll, in her book Quilted for Friends, Delaware Valley Signature Quilts, 1840-1855, discussed signature quilts of the Delaware Valley and commented that Quaker signature quilts "[...] exhibit stylistic and organizational preferences that were both shaped by and expressive of Quaker beliefs." She further quotes historian Howard Brinton as citing what he believes as "[...] the four basic testimonies of Quakerism: simplicity, equality, peace, and community." (Nicoll, 14.) While others cite different testimonies as most basic to Quakers, such as worship, honesty, and recognizing that of God in everyone, community was central to the everyday life of most historical Quakers. This was exemplified by their close-knit families, their movements from Quaker meeting to Quaker meeting as they migrated from place to place, their prodigious recordkeeping of family life events, and their adoption of signature quilts as a means to represent, document, preserve, and hold close their community of family and friends, whether living or dead.

Eliza's great granddaughter, Mrs. D. Meredith Reese, revealed to Jessica Nicoll that Eliza had suffered from a "lingering illness" which left her an invalid during her last two years of life. Eliza, in fact, began making quilt blocks in 1842 and finished enough of them by the time of her death in 1844 to make the Winterthur quilt and the quilt top at the Historic Odessa Foundation.

Central block of the Eliza Naudain Corbit Quilt Top. Use of photograph

courtesy of the Historic Odessa Foundation, Odessa, Delaware.

The central block of the quilt top contains a verse from a hymn written by Isaac Watts. It appeared in Hymns and Spiritual Songs published in 1707. Its reflections on death and the temporal nature of life is, in retrospect, poignant in light of how soon Eliza died in relation to the date of the quilt top. The verse reads:

"Thus far the Lord hath led me on,

Thus far his power prolongs my days,

And every evening shall make known

Some fresh memorial of his grace.

Much of my time has run to waste,

And perhaps am near my home,

But he forgives my follies past,

And gives me strength for days to come.

I lay my body down to sleep,

Peace is the pillow for my head,

While well-appointed angels keep

Their watchful stations round my bed.

Thus when the night of death shall come,

My flesh shall rest beneath the ground,

And wait thy voice to touch my tomb,

With sweet salvation in the sound."

Drawing of Eliza Naudain Corbit in the collections of the

Historic Odessa Foundation. Permission to use the image courtesy

of the Historic Odessa Foundation, Odessa, Delaware.

Eliza Naudain Corbit passed away on December 18,1844, undoubtedly surrounded by her family and perhaps some of her close friends. Not all who loved her would have been at her death-bed but the many friends and family members who inscribed their names on her quilt blocks were there at least in spirit. As Jessica Nicoll pointed out when discussing Eliza's quilt top, Eliza had symbolically gathered around her these members of her beloved community as she readied herself for death. (Nicoll, 13.)

Sources:

Our thanks to Brian Miller of the Historic Odessa Foundation for providing the object record of Eliza's quilt top and for use of the Foundation's photographs.

Ann Hanna Hambleton

Ann was the mother-in-law of Philena Cooper Hambleton, the subject of Philena's Friendship Quilt: A Quaker Farewell to Ohio, and the great-aunt of Senator Marcus Hanna of Ohio.

American Quilt Study Group

Do you know about the American Quilt Study Group (AQSG)? If not, you should. The purpose of this non-profit organization is to establish, sustain, and promote the highest standards for quilt related studies, to encourage these studies, and to provide opportunities to disseminate the work of both academic and non-academic researchers. Membership in the AQSG entitles one to receive Uncoverings, an annual journal of the research papers presented at AQSG's yearly Seminar, and a quarterly publication titled Blanket Statements containing research papers, notes and queries, as well as AQSG and quilt world news. In addition, an annual directory is provided that lists the names, contact information, and interests of current AQSG members--a valuable networking resource that gives access to approximately 950 fellow quilt enthusiasts. Click on the quilt block above to visit AQSG's web site and learn how to become a member. The site also provides information about the organization's annual Seminar, its publication opportunities, its Quilt Study program, and the Technical Guides and other publications available to members and the general public. AQSG is also on facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/American-Quilt-Study-Group/149056808116.

Quaker Quilts: Snapshots from an Exhibition

This pamphlet by Mary Holton Robare contains photographic and informational snapshots of quilts that were displayed in a three-day exhibit of Quaker Quilts held at Abram's Delight Museum in Winchester, Virginia, in 2014. The exhibit featured twenty-six quilts made between ca. 1840 and 2007. Click on the image to learn more about it.

Quilts and Quaker Heritage

Mary Holton Robare's book on selected quilts from an exhibition at the Virginia Quilt Museum in 2008. Click on the book to order and search by title.

Philena's Friendship Quilt: A Quaker Farewell to Ohio

In this 4th publication of the Ohio Quilt Series published by Ohio University Press, Lynda Salter Chenoweth presents the story of Philena Cooper Hambleton and the quilt made for her in Ohio in 1853 to take with her when she migrated to Iowa. To order, click on the book and then search by title.

Neighbors and Friends: Quakers in Community

Lynda Salter Chenoweth's second book based on her research into Philena's quilt tells the stories of those whose names appear on the quilt and places their lives in context. To order, click on the book and then search by title.

When This You See Remember Me

Also of interest by Mary Holton Robare. Schoolgirl Samplers of Winchester and Frederick County, Virginia. To order, click on the book, click "Store", then "Softcover Books" and search on title.

Followers

Copyright

(c) 2011-2017 Lynda Salter Chenoweth and Mary Holton Robare. Absolutely no reproduction or distribution permitted beyond one copy for personal study. For additional permissions regarding text please e-mail lchen@saber.net. All images are reproduced with permission of copyright holders. Any commercial or online use is strictly forbidden.

Lynda Salter Chenoweth

Mary Holton Robare

About Us

Lynda and Mary are quilt historians experienced in researching and publishing information about quilts made by members of the Religious Society of Friends. Their particular interest is in 19th century inscribed quilts that document Quaker families and their communities.
Lynda lives in Sonoma,California, and is a writer, a quilter, a researcher, and a member of the Board of the American Quilt Study Group. Mary lives in Winchester, Virginia, and is a writer, a researcher, and a choreographer and dance instructor.